Tusk was real target of Pegasus surveillance says his lawyer
Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council and Polish prime minister, has told a Senate commission investigating a spyware case that his client was the main target of the surveillance.
The Citizen Lab Research Laboratory, a specialist IT department at the University of Toronto, confirmed in late December that Israeli-made Pegasus software had been used to hack the mobile phones of a number of people linked to Poland's opposition.
A special commission appointed at the Polish upper house to investigate the case started witness hearings on January 17.
Giertych, one of victims of the hacking scandal, told the commission on Wednesday that Tusk, now the leader of Poland's main opposition party, was in fact the real target of the Pegasus surveillance.
He said that the fact that he represented Tusk at the time when he headed the European Council, "was crucial to using Pegasus against him."
"The reason I was under surveillance was simply the surveillance of Donald Tusk through me," he said.
The lawyer reported that, in mid-December last year, he found out from John Scott-Railton, a Citizen Lab specialist, about the use of Pegasus against him from September 5, 2019, till early December that year.
"I represented him (Tusk - PAP) in various proceedings, carried out on his initiative or other persons', therefore I was in constant contact with the President (of European Council - PAP) and the dates of the infection coincide with one very important issue at stake at this time - Donald Tusk's start in (Poland's - PAP) presidential election," Giertych said.
He added that the surveillance was stopped at the beginning of December 2019, when it became clear that Tusk would not run for the presidency.
Giertych also told the commission that, on Tuesday, he had received information from Citizen Lab that "huge files with various kinds of information, documents and photos were sucked" from his phone.
"Not only was Pegasus used to keep track of me, but data from my phone was simply collected," he said.
